


Finally some good news

by hopelessbookgeek



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: And a dubious grasp of the passage of time, F/M, Fluff, Some truly reliable kitten advice, Throw Away the Key AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: In which York is a panicking father figure and Carolina doesn't know anything about cats. Set in the same AU as "Throw Away the Key" by Legendaerie.





	Finally some good news

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Throw Away the Key](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6826939) by [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie). 



> This is Legendaerie's fault but merry Christmas anyway. I finally got to put my kitten knowledge to good use

The sharp trill of her cellphone woke Carolina immediately. She’d always wanted to be the kind of person who could wake lazily, who could linger in that warm, hazy place between dreaming and not, but she wasn’t. Never had been, even as a kid. Leonard was. Instead she woke up the way she did everything else: all at once.

“Carolina,” she said as greeting, rolling over and clicking on the bedside lamp. The clock read 3:48. It better be a goddamn emergency.

“ _I know it’s a bad time_ ,” said York, and she sighed.

“Is everything okay? Where are you?”

“ _The shop, I’m fine. You’re kind of good at medicine, right?_ ”

She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. “I have basic first aid training, but I’m not a nurse… if you’re having any kind of problem you need to either call an ambulance or your doctor in the morning. I’m not qualified.” People always thought she had more medical training than she did. Apparently steady hands and a straight face looks a lot like expertise.

“ _Have you ever had a cat?_ ”

God, she was tired. “No… I have birds, not really a cat-friendly lifestyle. If you want a cat, you can call a shelter in the morning. You know it’s four in the morning, right?”

“ _No, I know…_ ” Ah, she didn’t want to sound too sharp. York knew when to bother her and when not to. After just about everything else in her life, and every other weirdo in this town, it was a pleasant change of pace to meet someone who could be an inconvenience at only the best possible moments.

Not that she’d say that to him. It wouldn’t sound like a compliment out loud.

“ _But… okay, someone abandoned these kittens outside the shop…_ ” Oh, God. “ _And I’ll take them to a shelter in the morning but until then I need to… do you have a heating pad or something? Can you take a look at them?_ ”

“I don’t know anything about cats, York…” But she was already climbing out of bed, padding into the bathroom. She kept a heating pad under the sink for when period cramps got too bad. “How old are they?”

“ _I don’t know… little? I tried to look things up on my phone but I don’t get good reception here. You’re my lifeline. I’m sorry it’s so late._ ”

For a minute she said nothing at all, looked at the heating pad on her counter and felt the cold tile under her bare feet making her toes curl, her bathroom light harsh against her sleep-dull eyes. It was late, she was tired, she had work in the morning, the roads were still icy, and she didn’t know anything about cats. And York called her to ask for help. He didn’t even like cats.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” she said, and heard him sigh with relief.

She didn’t bother to get _really_ dressed; a little piece of her hoped there would be time for another hour of sleep before work, so instead she pulled a sweatshirt on and tucked her pajama pants into snow boots. It was maybe unnecessary to wave goodbye to Eta and Iota, but she did it anyway.

It had been a little while since she had an all-night patrol and there was a strange sort of magic to being out and about before the sun was up. It was that strange hour when the night owls had already gone to sleep and the early birds weren’t awake yet, and she was alone in the whole frozen world, driving slow down the familiar route with the radio turned all the way down. Something about the noise felt inappropriate, somehow. Too loud, or too jarring, or distracting or just too– much.

There was only one light on in the shop and York had left the door unlocked for her, so she bustled in through the nipping wind and stomped the snow crystals from her boots. “York?” she called. She shifted the heating pad to her other hand. Her fingers were very red. Probably she should have worn gloves, but last time she forgot York took her hands in his and promised he’d keep them warm himself.

“York?” she tried again, and for some reason thought about cuckoo clocks. Maybe she’d have to call his name once for every hour of sleep this was depriving her of.

“Back here,” he called back, and she followed the sound to the break room. York was sitting cross-legged on the couch, blanket draped around his shoulders. He held a tiny pile of fluff in each hand, close to his chest, and he looked absolutely terrified. “Morning, Carolina. Sorry to wake you. I just didn’t know who…”

“It’s alright. Let me just…” She had to unplug the ancient TV so that she could borrow the outlet for the heating pad, and while it was warming up she sat beside York and took one of the kittens from him. His empty hand immediately went to helping cradle the other, like he needed that much support for a kitten smaller than his hand.

The one Carolina held was black and she looked into its tiny face. Its ears were rounded, almost more like teddy bear ears than an adult cat’s, and its tail was just a triangle with no curl at the tip. “God, they’re small,” she said. Her thumb looked massive stroking its head. “You found them outside?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Obviously. And I heard this big _thump_ from outside, and I went out to check it out and these two were in a cardboard box just outside the back door. I looked around but I didn’t see any others, or any sign of a mother…” His good eye kept flickering between the kitten in his hands and the one in hers, anxious as a mother hen.

Carolina held out a hand, thinking he’d hand her the other kitten, but after a moment of hesitation he just took it with one of his own, and that made her smile. “I was reaching for the cat, but holding hands is nice too.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ve got her, though.”

“Her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just seems to fit.”

Carolina cocked her head a touch. “You don’t even like cats.”

“Only when they’re big and, y’know… bitey. This is a baby.” Maybe without knowing it he held the kitten a little closer. “Do you have okay reception in here? Can I look up kitten information?”

“Everyone always wants to use me for my data plan,” she sighed, but held out her phone. After a beat York traded her, took the phone and handed her the other kitten, a little tabby. They were both sleepy, both warm, both fat, and they sat contentedly– or at least lazily– in her palms while she watched York do some quick research. He tended to focus on things completely, brow furrowed, slightly biting his lower lip in concentration, and York had a tremendous love of knowledge, a monumental curiosity; was this what he did on his own, in his free time? Did he curl up under a blanket and lose himself in articles?

Everyone is most attractive when they’re involved in something they’re passionate about, but she couldn’t quite help but wonder if York could even get handsomer.

“I think they’re five weeks,” he said finally. “Their eyes are still blue, and they look like the picture.”

“So how do you take care of five week old kittens?”

“They can eat solid food,” he said. “But I don’t have any, and nowhere is going to be open for hours. I don’t know the last time they ate…”

“You have a cat in your house, York. I know you’re never there, but I’m sure Wash would forgive you for taking a can of food from Epsilon.”

He groaned. “Damn it. This is what I get for staying up too late. Bad memory.”

And that was some of it, to be sure; York wasn’t a panicky person but the very unexpected responsibility of two cold, abandoned kittens would rattle anyone. But some other part of her knew that mostly this wasn’t anything he wanted to do alone, either out of fear he’d make a mistake or just because, well, there were two frankly adorable kittens here and that was the kind of joy that few people could keep to themselves. In the middle of this awful cold snap, with night time temperatures in the single digits and the wind slapping their cheeks the minute they stepped outside, there was something kind of nice about a reminder that little things were warm and alive and that babies were being born. Silver lining, she supposed.

“I’ll give you a ride back home so you can feed them. I’m sure Wash would like to meet them.”

“Like to? He’d skip class to hang out with them if he thought he could get away with it, and that’s assuming he doesn’t demand we keep them. Which I’m not,” he said firmly, but Carolina knew the set of his jaw by now and it was much less confident than he probably intended. “Cute they may be right now, Epsilon is enough.”

“You can call a vet in the morning, if you’d like. The cat and bird hospital on Park Ave is really nice. Or you can call the shelter right off the bat, it’s up to you. But if they do go to the vet they should have names so you don’t have to put down _kitten 1_ and _kitten 2_.” 

He reached out for the black kitten and took it back. “Bismarck,” he said. “For this one.”

“Bismarck? As in Otto von?”

“It’s the capital of North Dakota, too.”

Ah, she wished she knew what that meant, but she didn’t even know what to ask because she didn’t know what she was asking _about_. So she said nothing about it at all, just nodded and looked down at the tabby. York called it _she_ and if there was a way to tell their sex right now she did not know it, but he had a fifty percent chance of being correct, so…

“Dallas,” she said, and he almost smiled.

“I forgot you were a Southern girl. You can take the girl outta Texas, but…”

She rolled her eyes and got up, went to unplug the heating pad. “It’s not _homesickness_ , if that’s what you mean.”

“Missing those lone ranges?”

“Dallas is a real city,” she said, “in the twenty-first century, with cars and skyscrapers. No one rides their horse to the general store.”

York got up as well, grabbed the cardboard box from beside the couch, handed it over along with the blanket. She made a little nest, careful to keep things covered up in such a way that the kittens wouldn’t get burned and nothing would get set on fire. “Did you know,” he said, and set Bismarck very gently in the box, “that you can get a DUI on a horse?”

“I did,” she said, and smiled. “I’m a cop. It’s not in every state, though. Not in this one. In Florida you can.”

“One more reason to avoid Florida, then. Unless you can also get a DUI on a manatee. Then I’m game to give that a shot.” He smiled back, and it was tired but genuine. When York smiled like that, the corners of his eyes crinkled up and the faintest lines appeared at his mouth like parentheses. He picked up the box and held it like it was worth its weight in gold but he didn’t move anywhere. They were very close.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to do that. Manatees are endangered.” She moved a little closer, and she wasn’t a short woman but it was sort of nice to have a man to look up at.

“Not anymore,” he said, and leaned down so that their noses brushed. “They were taken off the endangered species list.”

“How about that? Finally some good news,” she said, and kissed him. It wasn’t supposed to be a long kiss, more a _here I am_ sort of thing, but he didn’t pull back and neither did she and it could have been hours like that, in a freezing room with kittens in a box and limited time. She couldn’t even have said who broke the kiss eventually. God, maybe.

“You should grab your coat,” she said, and had to clear her throat.

“It’s at home. Forgot it.”

Oh, he was really going to give her an ulcer someday. “York, it’s below freezing.”

“Yeah,” he said. “A little chilly.”

“Oh, for God’s– c’mon, just get in the car.” She cranked the heat as soon as she could. Obviously. Kept the radio off, though. Still seemed too strange to keep it on. She drove carefully as ever and York never took his eye off the kittens in the box. Even slower than usual, it felt too soon before they were outside York’s place.

She put the car in park but neither of them moved for a bit, and with the radio off in that grey hour when the world was asleep it felt like time stood still. The passage of time had never frightened Carolina, never upset her, and she wasn’t devastated to remember that York had to get out of the car eventually and she had to go home and get ready for work, but… well, she enjoyed the frozen moment anyway.

“Thank you,” he said after a while. “For everything. I’ll make sure you get the heating pad back.”

“Keep it as long as you need it. Let me know what you decide to do with them. I can ask around, see if anyone’s interested in a couple of kittens.”

“That’d be nice. Then I’d know they’re going to good homes. Although I guess you probably know more criminals than I do, don’t you?”

“Not on a first name basis.” She leaned over and brushed her lips across his cheek, rough with five o’clock shadow and cold besides. “Have a good… rest of your night, I suppose. Text me later. Love you.”

“Love you too,” he said, and left. She watched to make sure he got inside safely and then sighed, turned the radio up a little, put the car back in drive. The clock read 5:04. She had work at seven.

Ah well. She didn’t need that much sleep anyway.


End file.
